Wednesday, June 28, 2006

New Look Bridal Gems Website

We've been working on our site design over the weekend to better incorporate the eBay listings into the home page. We are now using an RSS feed to update the eBay listings and have redesigned the whole front page to better fit the feed in to the page. The new look is well over due as the old front page had just about done it's time. We've tried to keep the page layout as simple and logical as possible and all the links that where on the old page should still be there with a few additions, mainly the new eBay listings. We added a new header to the page also just to complete the look. Comments and feed back are welcome and as always we'll be tweaking it a little over the next few days to iron out any remaining bugs that come up.

The biggest change on the front page is the addition of three special offers, which although I won't have time to update them all the time I will try to change them as often as possible. :-)

Monday, June 26, 2006

Bridal Gems on eBay

Currently we list several hundred items a week on eBay. All listing are in an auction format with a starting price up to 40% below the website price. Although many items are bid up and sell at or above the price on the website, occasionally items finish with no bidders and you could really pick up a bargain by popping on a late bid.

To help our visitors spot the bargains, we now list the latest eBay items on our home page. The list is connected live to eBay and updates as the auctions finish. We are also able to combine eBay and website orders to save on postage costs, all we ask is that you pay for both orders the same day and put a note with the payments that you want them combined.

Why not have a peep and see if you can pick up some cheap wedding jewellery, happy bidding :-)

Nigel

Thursday, June 22, 2006

New Coloured Wedding Tiaras

For several months we've been trying to source a range of coloured tiaras, and although it's by no means the complete package we've finally got a few styles and colours added to the website. To start off we decided to go with a few simple rhinestone and leaf designs. Firstly we have the T79 Cream Tiara, it's sterling silver plated and set with sparkling clear crystals. The leaves are enamalled with a cream coloured coating. The tiara is a standard adult size although it can be flexed in and out to fit little bridesmaids. For those looking for other colours we've introduced the same style in pink, purple and blue. These are very similar to the standard cream tiara with the exception of the rhinestones being coloured to match the enamalled leaves. All the tiaras in this range have fitting rings on the end's of the head bands and are about 5 1/2 inches in diameter. If you'd like a look at all the colours try the links below.

We also added a very pretty and stylish Lilac Spouting Stone Tiara to the range, I did hope to have these in a few different colours but we where let down by the manufacturers. I'm not sure if we'll be able to maintain a stock of these, but I thought they were worth a mention as they really are nice.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

My little rant for to-day - Returns

We have a very flexible attitude to returns and understand that buying online, or by mail order you need to know you can return an item if not suitable. In our returns policy we simply ask that returns are accompanied by the original invoice and sent back in the same condition they where received within 7 days of you receiving the order. We don't have this policy to be awkward or to put people off returning orders, we have very good reasons for all three of these requirements as detailed below.

Firstly lets look at condition, any item returned must be resold and as such absolutely has to be in perfect condition, we will not and can not sell any item which is not perfect and as such we strictly enforce this policy.

Secondly is the time frame, 7 days should we think be ample time to look at the jewellery and decide if it's suitable. We re-order stock as it sells and to accept items for return outside the 7 days would totally compromise our stock control system, which is in place to ensure we have the goods in stock that our customers need.

Thirdly and finally is the invoice issue, this is the one policy that is most often ignored. I've lost count of the number of times we've receive a box with a couple of necklaces or a tiara in it and nothing else. On average we dispatch between 3 and 4 hundred items of jewellery every week. When we receive an un-accompanied return we have to search through 2-3 weeks worth of sales to attempt to isolate all customers who purchased the particular product returned, and then try to figure out who sent it back.
Even when we receive a return with a customer name on the outside of the package we still have to try to trace how payment was made and when the order was delivered.
It may well be the wish to have an easy life, but we do now insist on the invoice being returned with the order. All packages returned without the invoice are simple set to one side and not refunded, we can not make exceptions to this, however if the customer sends the invoice separately we will then sort out the return.

Well that's the end of my rant for to-day, with less than 1% of the orders we dispatch returned, it's not really a big problem, but if we can make the process simpler and more efficient it can only benefit every one.

Monday, June 12, 2006

New Dedicated Customer Service Phone Number

We now have a dedicated "lo-call" customer service phone number 0845 2571715, UK customers using this number will be charge at local call rates from anywhere in the UK, and will get through directly to a customer services advisor.
In the next few months we'll be introducing our new sales phone number for telephone orders and credit card payments for customers not happy entering their credit card details online. As our website has grown so too has our offline mail order sales, and from next month we'll be able to process customers orders over the phone as well as online. I'll be posting the sales number here as soon as it goes live. The new phone numbers are just a small part of our continued commitment to provide the best possible services :-)

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

New Packaging Options

This week we've added the option of having your tiara packaged in a presentation box, the boxes will fit most of our standard tiaras and will come pre-assembled when purchased with a tiara, or flat packed when purchased on their own.
The boxes are cardboard with a metallic finish and a clear plastic lid.

We've been trying to source these for a while now and still only have limited stock availability, but we'll keep trying to get a reliable low cost supplier so we can continue to offer this option.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

The Stone and Pearl Skip Tiara, Back at last

Ok so we've been sold out of one of our prettiest tiaras for over 3 weeks, well not any more, from Wednesday 7th June they'll be back in stock. The T260 "Stone and Pearl Skip tiara" is a real favourite with brides and bridesmaids, the low profile suits many who don't want the larger more overt look.

The shipment due to arrive on Wednesday will also have more of the ever popular T130 "Baby Bubbles" tiaras, which have been selling fast in the past few weeks and were very low in stock. The "Baby Bubbles" was one of the first tiaras we ever sold and is still as popular today as it was back then. The simple unclustered look makes it a favourite for bridesmaids, brides and even little flower girls. It's also sold quite alot for "First Holy Communions" in Ireland as are a few of our other small rhinestone tiaras like the T410 and T120.

We'll that is for now folks, not bad my second article on the blog and I managed to post photographs, well provided you can see them, if not then I've screwed it up again :-)

Nigel

Thursday, June 01, 2006

What's happening at Bridal Gems

I've decided to create this little blog to keep the world updated about Bridal Gems.
Bridal Gems was born in 2002, and has grown over the years to what it is today. We are based in Northern Ireland and sell wedding jewellery and accessories through out the world. Our aim is to supply simple low cost jewellery without any hassel or pressure on the prospective purchaser. Currently we only sell online, both through our website www.bridalgems.co.uk and ebay.co.uk

I plan to update this blog every time something new or interesting happens, this could be daily or maybe even weekly. If we run into trouble or have problems this is where I'll get it off my chest and possibly even find solutions, in my ramblings :-)

Please feel free to comment on my articles and don't hold back, this is where I want to hear the good and bad side of things. If you're not happy with any aspect of our service, or if you've had the best shopping experience ever, let us know.

That's it for now, but I'll certainly be back soon.